Pharos - Leaderboard - Apr24
Leeds - Main Banner - Apr24
Hof - Main Banner - Mar-Apr24

General

Details
Ireland - In late 2021, VDC Trading was approached by Murt Whelan Sound to create a 48-channel stagebox which will be core to much of the company’s work in 2022.
Murt Whelan Sound (MWS) is a pro-audio rental and installation company based in Limerick in the Republic of Ireland. It provides professional services nationwide and is a one stop production shop, offering support from initial concept and design right through to the realisation and management of any large-scale event.
MWS constantly invests in responsive, state-of-the-art equipment to ensure it stays ahead of the

Details
On The Beach - The BBC Concert Orchestra will take up a three-year residency in a seaside town to "raise aspirations". Its arrival in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, is due to a collaboration with the charity Orchestras Live and arts organisations in the county. The aim was to "provide learning pathways and improve people's wellbeing", the charity said. It will run workshops in every primary school in the town and hold a free schools concert.
Part of the Create Yarmouth strategy, it hopes to encourage students to get creative with music. “The programme aims to raise aspiration, provide
Hof - Main Banner - Mar-Apr24
Leeds - Main Banner - Apr24

Details
UK - Abbey Road Institute is a specialist music production school and the training ground for the next generation of music producers and sound engineers. Its foundations are the expertise and innovation created at Abbey Road Studios.
Originally based in St Johns Wood as part of the famous studio’s complex, the school’s diploma became so popular with students that it needed to expand its facilities to accommodate the growing demand. During the summer of 2021, the Institute moved into and revived the historic Angel Recording Studios in Islington, near Kings Cross. VDC provided t

Details
Cover Up - Theatres across England have indicated they will continue to ask audiences to wear masks for the safety of their staff and other theatregoers, despite restrictions being lifted later this week.
Prime minister Boris Johnson announced last week that Plan B measures - including mandatory mask wearing in theatres - would be lifted this week. Following his announcement, numerous theatres have said that they plan to continue requesting face coverings inside their venues.
Sheffield Theatres said it had taken the decision to continue with mandatory face coverings beyond 2

Details
USA - Symetrix has launched Symetrix Professional Services, fee-based services that “leverage the experience and knowledge of Symetrix applications engineers to provide engineering support for their customers’ projects”.
Symetrix Professional Services include site file programming, custom intelligent module creation, and remote or on-site commissioning.
There is a dedicated in-house team of Symetrix applications engineers who can review the system design to ensure that the selected hardware will work seamlessly in a system. Because it is being reviewed by Symetrix, cus

Details
Coachella Returns - Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and Kanye West - known as Ye - will headline this year's Coachella festival. It's being held for the first time since 2019 after the 2020 festival was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The festival runs across two weekends in April in Indio, California, with the same line-up appearing on them both. Swedish House Mafia, Flume, Megan Thee Stallion, Disclosure, Doja Cat and Run the Jewels will also perform. Billie Eilish will become the festival's youngest ever headliner.
Celtic Connections - The organisers of Celtic Con

Details
USA - Amber Solutions has announced that its AC Direct DC Enabler is now available as a demo kit for technical evaluation by consumer, commercial and industrial electrical products manufacturers and semiconductor companies, such as Infineon Technologies, who have already announced an alliance around Amber.
This breakthrough Amber AC direct power system enables DC extraction directly from AC Mains without the use of transformers, rectifiers, or filtering. It eliminates many of the old-tech electromechanical components that are still standard today, enabling a dramatically smaller s

Details
UK - For the past 40 years, 5 Star Cases has been manufacturing flight cases that are already trusted by a vast range of industries, ensuring the safe transport of vital equipment around the world, even in the most challenging of environments, safely and securely.
Taking its four decades of experience and expertise, 5 Star is now producing a new range of custom-designed packing crates, which can be used as a cost-effective alternative when flight cases are not required, or as an added level of protection when they are.
Using the same advanced production techniques and extens

Details
Overwhelming Loss - Bring It On the Musical has cancelled its planned UK tour dates after suffering an "overwhelming loss of income" due to omicron disruption. The show was forced to cancel 13 performances during its six-week run at the Southbank Centre in London due to self-isolation requirements, losing hundreds of thousands of pounds, producers said. It continues at the Queen Elizabeth Hall until 22 January, however producer Selladoor Worldwide has now announced that the touring dates that followed will not go ahead. It had been due to visit locations across the UK until 30 Ju

Details
Austria - The experience of Chameleon Event Production’s personnel, combined with the advanced pathogen eradication tools from sister company Entec UVC SafeClean, twice saved the day, and enabled a fashion-based sales meeting from one of their most loyal and long serving clients to go ahead - in spite of COVID lockdown.
Having worked with global sports and fashion headwear specialists, New Era, since 2014, they were booked to stage an interactive sales meeting for their sales force at the Hilton on the Danube in Vienna, and had done 90% of the prep when Austria announced its l

Details
USA - The Long Reach Long Riders and Behind the Scenes will host their annual fundraising raffle at the USITT Conference 3-5 March in Baltimore.
This year’s raffle will celebrate the 19th anniversary of the Long Reach Long Riders annual charity motorcycle ride. The Riders, who have raised over $800,000 for charity in their years of touring, will be riding 18-24 June on the Blue Ridge Ramble tour through the Appalachian Mountains.
The Behind the Scenes Boutique will also be open for business during the show featuring an assortment of great Behind the Scenes swag and the famo

Details
Further Action - Labour is calling on the government to urgently take further action to support the arts sector - including widening eligibility for the Culture Recovery Fund - warning many “treasured theatres” face collapse without support. The call on the government follows an announcement from chancellor Rishi Sunak that £30m has been added to the CRF.
However, Labour said more needs to be done to ensure the “support is effective” and reaches “those most in need”. The party’s demands include: widening the scope of the Culture Recovery Fund Emergency Resource Gran

Details
World - As the LSi and PLASA teams finish up for the festive break, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued readership throughout 2021.
Whilst the pandemic continues to cast its long shadow, it has been encouraging to see the gradual return of the full spectrum of live events, and to bring you technical reports from some of the brightest concert touring, theatre and festival productions across both LSi Online and the magazine.
Our daily online news service will resume on Tuesday, 4 January 2022. Until then, if you fancy a read, you can access LSi

Details
More Cancellations - Almost half of London's major theatres were forced to cancel performances last weekend because of Covid infections, as Omicron plays havoc with live events. Of the 46 full members of the Society of London Theatre that had shows running, 22 scrapped performances.They included Hamilton, Matilda, Wicked, The Lion King, Cinderella, Cabaret and Come From Away.
Producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh said it was "hugely disruptive" and the industry was in a "dreadful state". He told BBC News: "It's literally day-to-day. We sp

Details
Record Spend - A record £4bn was spent making TV shows in the UK in the past year - almost double the figure before the pandemic. TV production slumped during lockdown but rebounded to a new high between October 2020 and September 2021, the British Film Institute (BFI) has said.
Some £4.14bn was spent filming British and foreign shows like Bridgerton and Peaky Blinders in the UK in that time. That compares with the £2.3bn spent in the same period in 2018-19 and is 10 times more than was spent in 2013. The latest figure includes money spent by British TV channels on home-made se

Details
Freelancers in the Dark - The coronavirus lockdowns have had a major impact on theatre freelancers, leaving them pessimistic for the future, says the leader of a study. Dr Holly Maples, of the University of Essex. said the "stops and starts" of the lockdown prevented freelancers from being able to plan ahead. She said many did not know whether they would be able to carry on in their profession.
The first part of the report, called Freelancers in the Dark, found 72.4% of respondents felt more pessimistic about their future as a theatre freelancers. Dr Maples, a senior lectur

Details
Canada - After another uncommon year, Solotech has maintained its ninth position in Systems Contractor News’ Top 50 systems integrators.
At the same time, Solotech confirms its place as Canada’s prime integrator, being the only Canadian company to make it on to the list. The acquisition of CBCI, a Solotech company, in May 2021, has further strengthened Solotech’s expertise in systems integration from coast to coast.
‘’This recognition is the result of the hard work of our team of experts,” said Philip Giffard, global president, sales & systems integration d

Details
Sondheim Remembered - The lights in London's West End were dimmed on Monday night as theatres payed tribute to US composer and songwriter Stephen Sondheim who has died aged 91. The composer and lyricist, famous for creating the musical Sweeney Todd, was described as one of theatre's "greatest geniuses" after his death on Friday.
Sir Cameron Mackintosh said the world had "lost one of its greatest and most original writers". The theatrical producer renamed his Queen's Theatre venue after the composer in 2019. During his illustrious career, he wrote the scores of some of Broadway's b

Details
UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) has announced Mig Burgess Walsh and David Evans as co-chairs. The duo will succeed Richard Bunn, senior consultant at Arup, who navigated the ABTT during the pandemic period.
Walsh is lighting tutor at the Guildford School of Acting, chair of AAPTLE Wellbeing Group, and an active freelancer. Evans is the head of production at National Theatre Wales, former chair of the Production Managers’ Forum and a founding production manager and board member of the Lagos Theatre Festival.
The ABTT says: “The combination of

Details
Hard Times - One third of musicians were still earning nothing after restrictions on live events were lifted this summer, according to UK charity Help Musicians. The music industry is one of the last sectors to recover from the pandemic, it said, with 83% of professional musicians unable to find regular work. The findings are based on a survey of 929 musicians in August. Almost nine in 10 were earning less than £1,000 per month, and 22% were considering giving up music altogether.
Restrictions on live music were removed in England and Wales in July, and Scotland in August, after

Details
Spain - Artists touring to Spain will no longer need visas for short-term engagements in a dramatic change to the current onerous rules. The change follows months of work from LIVE and the Association for British Orchestras (ABO), working alongside Spanish counterparts Asociación Promotores Musicales.
The development represents a significant boost for the sector which has, as a result of Brexit and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, seen European touring become more expensive, more complicated, and more difficult to execute.
Visas have been a significant issue for Spain w

Details
Safety Concerns - COVID-19 safety concerns are preventing a significant proportion of previously frequent arts attenders from returning to cultural venues, newly released research has suggested.
Among audiences that have not yet returned to in-person performance, less than a third have booked tickets to a cultural event in future, underlining the crucial importance of COVID safety reassurance from venues, according to the joint research by the Insights Alliance, made up of consultancies Indigo, Baker Richards and One Further. The organisations have urged theatres to continue to em

Details
Safe and Inclusive - A set of principles aimed at creating safe and inclusive working spaces in the industry have been updated to include all forms of discrimination. Launched in 2017 in response to the #MeToo movement by the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre, the original set of principles focused specifically on bullying and harassment.
The list has now been updated to cover all forms of discrimination, including racism, and the organisations behind the principles hope they will become standard across the industry. Equity and BECTU are among 21 industry bodies that are su

Details
Deep Concern - A House of Lords committee has warned it is “deeply concerned” about the “existential threat” facing the performing arts because of touring restrictions caused by Brexit and has urged the government to work to address the issues.
It outlines evidence heard by the European Affairs Committee on 14 September from BECTU national secretary Noel McClean, Incorporated Society of Musicians chief executive Deborah Annetts and chair of LIVE Touring Group Craig Stanley.
Kinnoull said that the committee found the witnesses "compelling and persuasive" and that it w
  1. The Week in Light & Sound
  2. ESTA draft standards open for public review
  3. New leadership at Global Infusion Group
  4. BTS virtual Mental Health training available
  5. ADJ's Spooktacular Contest opens online
  6. Get creative for the Backup Pumpkin Challenge
Page 13 of 237
Robe - Large MPU
Astera - MPU - Mar-Apr24
Leeds - MPU - Apr24
GLP - MPU - Mar-Apr24

Latest Issue. . .